Looking forward to the next season of 24? Well, prepare to wait a little bit longer for it to start. Because of the Writers Guild of America strike, FOX has decided to postpone day seven in order to be able to show a complete season, rather than just broadcasting the completed episodes and then doing the rest when the strike ends.

You can read the story here, or go here to check out an updated status report on various shows, courtesy of the L.A. Times. There have been a lot more photos of the strikers out there in the past few days, as actors joined writers on the picket line.

The End of This Golden Age of TV - It’s no secret that in the past few years, we’ve been living in an era with the best Television ever created. And while I think that era actually peaked in 2004-2005 (since then, we’ve lost The Sopranos, Deadwood, Veronica Mars, The West Wing) (and we are on track to lose The Wire, Battlestar Galactica, Scrubs), the Writers Strike will hasten the demise. And not just because the networks will flood the airwaves with reality shows.

I think that the it is going to be a matter of momentum. Creative momentum. You can also watch a TV show gather steam over the course of a season: it happened last year to Heroes and 30 Rock as the writers got on top of their ideas and the actors got inside of their characters. You saw it this year with Mad Men, and you were beginning to see it with Pushing Daisies. And now, all of that momentum is gone. Poof. All of the ideas piling on top of each other that would have happened just because of the need to create under deadline and the immediate link to the previous ideas that worked — that’s all gone. Is momentum important? Ask the Colorado Rockies. Ask nearly every single band who has ever broken up and reunited. Ask any fan of the first three Star Wars films if they would have rather George Lucas follow his original plan of making a new film every three years or waited 20 years for the next installment.

It’s going to take a toll on quality.

Even though I can't take sides in the strike, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that it's a disheartening situation, mostly for this reason. It's not that I simply want television back. I want it to be good. That brings us to a possible upside to the strike, again, from Media Loper:

The End of Reality TV-- Forget the fact that Reality TV is essentially scripted by the Producers. (Which, of course, says a lot about — well, everything.) And forget the fact that it continues to be a viable genre. If the networks think that they are going to flood us with nothing but Reality TV, we will rebel. It’s that simple. And it will affect the bottom line.

I have a [lot] of DVDs that I can watch. This last summer, I did not watch a single episode of a single Primetime TV show on NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX or CW. I am fully prepared to do that again, and I guarantee that I’m not the only one. [They're not. When the strike began, I filled up by Netflix queue with dozens of shows I've been meaning to watch. -- TC]

It’s entirely possible that by the end of the strike, the only show that is still getting good numbers is American Idol. Everything else in the Top Ten will be wayy down from the scripted shows that they replaced.

Without writers, networks aren't left with many more choices other than reality TV/competition shows. The L.A. Times reported that CBS is looking to do some sort of Ultimate Fighting Championship show, and it wouldn't surprise me if NBC resurrected "To Catch a Predator" as a full-time series.

In last week's Nielsen ratings, scripted TV shows accounted for 11 of the top 20 shows (and of the remaining nine slots, three were non-reality programs: the Eagles/Cowboys game, its pregame show, and 60 Minutes). In a perfect world, instead of showing reruns of existing shows, the networks would rebroadcast shows that not many people have seen.

Law and Order SVU shutting down? Show Homicide: Life On The Streets! CBS could replace Moonlight with Angel. "Hey honey, that show with the vampire detective is on, only it seems a lot better!"

And as much as I'd like to see reality TV die out, I'm not sure viewers are that loyal to shows like Cold Case and CSI: NY that they would turn off the TV entirely. We could a lot more game shows that involve people guessing what's in briefcases. Or better yet: Chris Hansen could fight those predator guys in a steel cage!